


The Crooked Kind

by Pineapplepie



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Age Swap, Alistair's his usual delightful D-BAG-ISH self, Alternate Universe - Not Related, Angst and Feels, Angst and Porn, Businessman Hiro, Consensual Rough Oral Sex, Dark, Dom Hiro, Dysfunctional Relationships, Established Relationship, Hiro's a little shit, Hiro's being all theatrical, Intern Tadashi, M/M, Power Play, Sub Tadashi, Surrealistic, editing made me laugh a lot, is that even a thing?, just your usual pineapplepie drama, kloveyoubye, so an emotional piece of poop, with emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-20 15:23:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4792577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pineapplepie/pseuds/Pineapplepie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You said you wanted more, baby boy. You said you wanted more!" Hiro's voice was guttural. He could feel it claw his throat raw, holding onto strings of spit between the tandems. <br/>And he didn't stop. He wouldn't stop. <br/>- You said more. You said faster. I'm giving you everything you're begging for. I'm giving. I'm giving. Everything. So don't leave. -<br/>Hiro's hands clutched his rib cage, felt the tremors deep inside the bones. Hummingbird breath. And then Tadashi burst open, everything shaking, crumbling off and putting itself back together. He screamed. Once. A call. And Hiro raked his nails across his burnished shoulder blades. He could feel it, those feathers, sprouting, growing proud, quivering. <br/>Getting ready to take flight.  </p><p>                                                                          ☓ ☓ ☓</p><p>Aversion to pain was human instinct. Aversion to pain was human nature. <br/>Even bad men were human. And wasn't that the cruelest punishment of them all. </p>
            </blockquote>





	The Crooked Kind

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, y'all! It's one-shot story time! 
> 
> Hiro's Alistair Krei's son, and Tadashi's the shiny new intern from SFIT. I'm thinkin' Hiro's like an angsty hot 30 year old Dom-Papi, and Tadashi's the adorable 20 year old twink with a heart of gold and a butt of gold and a junk of gold - and a crazy oral fixation, like damn. 
> 
> This is angsty, so I'm very sorry if that paragraph just now made it sound like a 50 Shades of Grey parody-on-crack version. 'Tis not. Although I should totally think about writing that. 
> 
> Anyways, have fun! *enthusiastic boogie moves* That was horrible. It's not gonna be fun. It's gonna be kinda confusing. I have no idea how I feel about this thing...
> 
> (Not betad, so I apologize for all the silly mistakes you might stumble upon! I'm terrible at editing at midnight! Honestly, I'm terrible at editing in general!)

He was always so eager to please. So eager to do this right and that, driven, hell-bent on being the best he could ever be. 

_Bigger, better, higher, higher, higher._

He was a little quiver of a bird, spine so brittle you'd think it would snap if you touched him too wrong for too long. Like he wouldn't be able to withstand all the dirt Hiro loved pumping into his system, all the fuck-up, all the corruption and the nasty.

Hiro was breaking him - his little quiver of a bird. All his. _All mine._

Tadashi was property. Him and that tiny bow-string-mouth of his, and that tongue that got so wet so fast, saliva dripping out of the corners, down his chin, over Hiro's knuckles that he loved having locked around his jaw, trickles hitting the floor, drip-drop. _'Open baby boy, open, open wide for Daddy. Yeah, like that, just like that. Good boy. Good. Boy.'_

And he'd open his mouth wider, whimpers so eager, his puppy teeth sliding against Hiro's skin, staining him red, leaving indents, reminders, memories that Hiro would fuck himself to sleep with when the nights got too cold and his bed got too big for just one heartbeat. He'd huff his name. He'd feel it in his chest, deep, a rumble. A need, screaming, aching like hunger in his gut.  

 _Tadashi_.

 

 

☓☓☓

 

 

"Yeah, fuck, just like that, just like that," Hiro mumbled over and over again, a hand knotted into the kid's hair, pushing him closer, keeping him from backing away. Not that he would. Tadashi would not leave him. Hiro had him for this little blip in time. 

_You're mine, all mine, baby boy._

His pretty mouth stretched around Hiro's cock, lips swollen-red and puffed, sucking, slurping, cheeks dabbed like candy apples and bruises. Hiro groaned when the tip of him nudged against the back of that tight throat. He had his fingers curled around his jaw, the smoothest bone, his nails cutting along the flesh of his neck, feeling his own length causing the tandems to bulge and retreat. He wondered what it looked like - Tadashi's throat with Hiro buried deep. Like the puffed chest of a sparrow, quivering. He was in him, all the way inside. Sloshy and wet to the core. Hiro pinched his eyes closed. He imagined that he could see the electric currents in his brain zapping back and forth and up and down, fueling receptors, blasting transmitters. Sensory overload. 

And then there it was, that thing, taking over, conquering. It ripped through his stomach, made his head spin in the tightest circles. 

Red. Blazing. _Deranged_. 

His fingers tightened around Tadashi's jaw, and he watched him choke, nostrils quivering for air, spine trembling like he'd stabbed a power socket with a knife. Hiro jutted his hips forward, slipping further into that wet pocket of body heat and tongue.

"Swallow, baby boy, swallow," he said, voice cracking every time he tried to nod.

_So eager. Always so eager._

Tadashi's hands were splayed across the polished ink-floor of the office, knuckles white and twitching in the dark. Hiro upped his pace, fucking his face, mauling him over, crushing, crushing, crushing. 

Tadashi's fingers latched onto Hiro's calf, the softest touch - and then Hiro's gut started leaking, thumb on the trigger, click-clack-bam, his load shooting out of him like a bullet.

Static in ears. Eyes, red dynamite.  

 _Don't you fucking touch me._  

Hiro's hand curled into Tadashi's scalp, vice-tight. He yanked him away. The boy mewled like some tortured animal, coughed, choked up like he could still feel Hiro's cock in his throat. And Hiro wished - _prayed_ \- he felt him in there every day, every night, every second he wasn't with him, by his side, leashed. 

The bottom of Tadashi's face was wet, saliva and cum, sticky in the midnight glow of the San Fransokyo skyline that was leaking through the infinity-glass replacing the walls. Like a terrarium in the sky. Like a terrarium for the Gods. 

Mortal entertainment. 

_Come, take a peek at my kingdom come._

The image stretched out in front of him made his head spin faster: Tadashi, slumped over his shins, hands on the floor, arms shaky-steady in their rolled up white sleeves, cuffs undone. Everything about him was undone. Everything. 

Maybe everything inside of his pretty head, too. Maybe. Hopefully. 

And he was staring up at Hiro with his head low like he was bracing for some sort of hit, incoming pain. Hiro's calf was searing. It was that spot - the spot where Tadashi had touched him without asking. Without permission. 

_Never break the rules, baby boy. Never._

"You ask for _permission_ ," Hiro said, voice an iron rod. Tadashi flinched, punished, like he'd been hit.

A tap of a ruler on dirty-rimmed school boy fingers. 

Tadashi steadied back, and he pulled down one of his rolled up sleeves to wipe his face. "I - I didn't - " he started, mumbling, still catching his breath. His hummingbird breath. Fast and crumbly. "I didn't mean t-"

"Come here," Hiro said.

"I didn't -"

"Stop talking. Come here." Hiro slid his suit pants back up, fingers fumbling for the belt to snap back into place, hide the sticky mess below his waist, the residue. The evidence.

His hands were shaking. He didn't know why. His hands weren't allowed to shake. His hands were controlled, coiled, tight, tight, tight. His hands were a perpetual structure of his anatomy, unbreakable, stone, marble. 

His hands could build empires from the ground up, from the inside-out. 

His hands could mold a body - Tadashi's dainty little bird-boned body - and turn it into something glorious, something horrendous, break it, mend it, twist it 360 degrees. Turn it into anything. Anything at all.

Hiro's hands did not shake. Never.

Tadashi was still crumpled across the floor, not moving. He was a breathing contrast against the objects in Hiro's office, the only thing that wasn't steel-sharp and glass, cold from a distance. He was soft. He was petalled flesh and gesture. He was the only dab of color in the room. Red, like an organ that moved to rhythms no one could hear. Red, like that paper cut on his little left forearm. Red, like rubbed meat beneath a butcher's knife. 

Red. 

Tadashi was all Hiro could see when he closed his eyes. 

Red. 

"Come here," Hiro said. Hard. Cutting. _Come here._

Tadashi's breath hitched, this brittle hiccup that Hiro could grab straight out of the air and crush between his fingertips. He crawled across the floor, his knees sliding, bruising himself. Tadashi's knees were always bruised. Velvet. Cashmere. 

Hiro spread his legs, let his boy come sit in the space between his thighs. Tadashi plopped down in the middle, careful, shoulders slouching, not touching.

"Ask." Hiro ripped the word straight out of his gut. 

Tadashi's bottom lip quivered. Red. Hiro caught his chin with a snap. 

_Look at me._

Tadashi's eyes flicked up. Heavy-lidded crescents. Hiro pressed his thumb into the pillow of his cheek, watched the pressure force away the flush, creating this bleached stain, round like the moon. 

He was the prettiest thing.

"Ask, Tadashi."

He jerked at his own name, mouth popping open, a string of saliva snapping in the widening gap between his lips. 

"Can - " He swallowed. "Can I - " He swallowed again. Hiro could hear it. Hiro could hear everything, the hum of the lights of San Fransokyo, the heart in that little birdy boy chest. 

"Can I touch you." Swallow. "Mr. Krei?" Swallow. 

Hiro remembered what it felt like when that throat swallowed around him, when he wanted to give Hiro everything he could.  

_Faster, deeper, harder, baby boy._

And he did. He always, always did.

Hiro said, 'Jump!', and he said, 'How high?' And he always jumped higher than Hiro wanted him to. He went soaring. He went shooting for the sky. He went airborne. 

Hiro wondered when the time would come where he wouldn't be able to reach him anymore, Tadashi, Hiro's quiver of a bird, spreading his wings. Never looking back. 

_Don't look back._

"No," Hiro said. "No, you can't."

Tadashi's eyelids twitched up a fraction, eyes so big, so visible: fertile ground in the afternoon glow, everything green and breathing. 

Hiro's old hideaway. Hiro's old home. Hiro's old life. 

A time where he'd been happier. 

Sometimes he wondered if that was why he liked breaking this kid so much, hurting him, making his spine tremble and crunch, pumping him up with all the dirt he could scrape off of the world - so he would remind him less of that time, of that place, of that feeling. 

 

_'What do you want to be when you grow up, Hiro?'_

_'Happy.'_

_'No, silly, I mean - what do you want to be when you're an adult? A firefighter? An astronaut? A police officer? A businessman? A big-shot like your daddy?'_

_'Why can't I just be happy?'_

_'Because that's not the way life works, hon'.'_

_'But, mom, that's unfair.'_

_'Life's unfair.'_

_'So, tell me, c'mon, Hiro. For real, now. What do you wanna be? Rich? Famous? A hero?'_

_Happy. Just happy. That's all I'm asking for._

Tadashi plopped his head onto Hiro's thigh, eyes looking up, the gentlest touch, like a gust of air coming out of a mouth. His mouth.

Hiro wanted to shove him off, make him respect the rules.

_No. No means no._

But then Tadashi's hands were fiddling with the material of Hiro's suit pants, playing, tugging, like a child. He rubbed his cheek into him in round motions, over and over again, a steady carousel, the kind he used to ride at the city fair. He'd loved the carousel, loved the music-box tunes and the crumbling paint job of the horses he'd sit on, perched high, legs dangling, calves tight against the plastic. Like something invincible in the midst of cotton candy and caramel popcorn. He'd loved the carousel. He'd loved the smile on his face, the wet-warm feel of something good in his gut.

Tadashi brushed his fingers along the line of Hiro's shin. Maybe he was soothing him. Maybe he was trying to lull him into something warmer than all this, take him away, make him forget. His touches made Hiro's hands less twitchy. He curled his fingers into the leather of the armrests, let the crunch of it ease the crunch in his chest. 

Hiro could hurt this kid all he wanted to. He could say no and yes and no. He could burn him, slice him up, rip him into a million pieces and fling his fractures into the wind - and he'd run right back. Whatever Hiro did, Tadashi would never leave him alone. Tadashi would never leave. 

For now, that was. For now, with his wings still growing. And maybe that thought was just as comforting as it was terrifying. Beautifully tragic.  

_Stop being such a good boy._

_Stop being so good._

_Stop being._

Hiro twisted his fingers into Tadashi's hair. And he just held on tight - until his hands stopped shaking.

_Stop being._

 

 

☓☓☓

 

 

It was instinct. It was human nature. He belonged to a species that possessed a natural aversion to pain. By definition, pain was unpleasant. 

Aversion to pain - an evolutionary response, an evolutionary advantage. 

No one could function properly whilst in pain. No one. 

And what was the opposite of pain? What was the opposite of suffering, of gut-wrenching agony that made your eyes tear and your head burn, inferno?

What was that one thing that permitted optimum human function? 

What was the opposite of pain?

 

 

☓☓☓

 

 

Tadashi shot him a glance from where he was bent over the copy machine, tie haphazardly flung over his birdy boy shoulder. He had trouble standing, knees constantly twitching, like he was caught up in a patch of the atmosphere that was ruled by earthquakes and lightning-fast tectonic plate shifts.

He looked so lovely in the hum of the linoleum lights. Flushed. Broken in. Wet-through. 

Hiro's baby boy.

He'd fucked him raw in the bathroom, stalls shuddering, fingers shoved into his mouth so no one would hear. He made the prettiest sounds, tortured to an end, where everything he puffed out was hoarse air, pleading. 

Hiro had upped his pace. Tadashi never gave up. 

_Bigger, better, higher, higher, higher. Watch me go airborne, Hiro. Watch me._

The stakes had gotten so high. Hiro was twisting their game into the cruelest angle. 

He was letting his boy dangle. Maybe he'd let go. Maybe he'd fall, catch himself, finally fly. 

_Leave._

_Leave me._

But he stayed. No matter what Hiro did, he stayed. Always. 

Even on those nights where he let go of his sanity, where he sprawled his boy over a desk, played him like an instrument, a fiddle, crushed him, cracked him, ripped out the strings one by one, reduced him to nothing. Left him there. Bare and cold, quivering with that sparrow throat. Gulp. Swallow. 

Those nights were torture. Those nights made Hiro see nothing but red. He was a mad-man thriving in chaos, the end of the world. He was unhinged. And his boy - his poor baby boy - being strung along by nothing but the thinnest thread. 

Hiro broke him in those midnight hours, showed him a side of himself that could force the world to its knees. 

Power was a strange thing. 

Power. 

Raw. Animalistic instinct. Once was never enough. 

And little Tadashi wouldn't stop baring his neck, sweating, face puffed, moans so hoarse. 

_'More, more, more, Hiro, please, please, please.'_

And Hiro's thumb would brush over his slick mouth, that pink tongue coming out to taste him, lick him clean, soothing. And his eyes would be so warm, damp soil in the afternoon glow, and Hiro would back away, look away, leave the room.

And he'd lean against the back of the door, hands shaking. And he'd hear his boy behind him, in the room, on his desk, in his own chest. Deep inside. 

_Stop being so good._

_Stop being._

☓☓☓

 

 

"What are you thinking?" Her voice like sweet smoke and milk. 

Hiro was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking out at the night sky line stretching out behind the glass that caged his bedroom. 

San Fransokyo. It was going to be all his one day. It had to. It was imprinted into his heart lines, woven into his blue blood. The simple laws of the line of succession. 

Hiro didn't know why that thought made his chest crunch. 

Her hands were on his shoulders, smooth, freckled, her red mouth painting spirals into his neck. 

"Nothing," he said.

 _Everything_ , he thought.

She pressed her bare chest against his spine. He could hear her breathe, languid motions like ocean tides. 

She tried so hard to be enough. They all did. But they never were. None of them had his hummingbird breath. 

"Get out," he growled, like an animal. Like the wolf he was. 

"But - wait, I - "

Hiro shoved her off, his hands sharp as he clutched her red hair. She had hair that looked like it could sear right through your skin. Burn you. Ignite. 

Hiro was fireproof. 

"I left a check on the table. Take it and get out. Leave."

 _Leave_.

She clutched the sheets against her body, moonshine and cream, spilling over the edge of the bed and leaking through the crack in the door. 

They all left when he told them to. They all disappeared. They all left. 

Hiro stood up, stepped against the glass, pressed his forehead against the cool touch of it. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. 

The shudder of the front door cut through the electric night. 

They all left him behind.

_So why can't you, baby bird? Why can't you just fly away?_

  

 

☓☓☓

 

 

Tadashi was so hungry for a bigger challenge. And Hiro tried. He tried to give him that, tried doing this and that, clutching him, tearing him, and he just kept demanding. 

'Give me more' - _Faster_ \- 'Give me more' - _Harder_ \- 'Give me more, Hiro' - _Deeper_ \- 'More, more, more'

It was never enough. 

And Hiro could see it, his little quiver of a bird, growing, wings on his back, dark and glorious. And the bigger they got, the more Hiro wanted to shackle Tadashi's feet to the ground. 

_Leave me._

_No, don't._

_Don't._

_Please._

Tadashi was squirming in front of him, chest pressed against the dark oak of his desk. Bare. The muscles in his shoulders coiling, things so alive, rib cage thrumming against his bright-bleached skin. He was the prettiest thing. Like a holy creature on a cross. 

His head kept turning, eyes roaming, searching. Hiro was not allowing him to look. He didn't want to see those eyes. 

_Damp soil. Childhood. The greenhouse in the afternoon glow._

Hiro yanked his hair, pushed his head back to face the front. 

_Don't look at me. Don't you dare. Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou._

Hiro's hips were drilling, tight, tight, tight, the slickness of his baby boy dripping out onto the polished floor. He could smell it, saliva and that dirty residue of cum. 

Smack. Thump. Splat. 

Nothing but skin hitting skin, wet, sloshy. Fire in his gut. 

Hiro pulled Tadashi's leg, angle changing, and then he hit that spot - the one that made his boy banshee-scream. Again and again and again. 

Tadashi's hands went berserk, clutching at anything he could reach, anything that could keep him steady. 

"You said you wanted more, baby boy. You said you wanted more!" Hiro's voice was guttural. He could feel it claw his throat raw, holding onto strings of spit between the tandems. 

And he didn't stop. He wouldn't stop. 

_You said more. You said faster. I'm giving you everything you're begging for. I'm giving. I'm giving. Everything._

_So don't leave._

Hiro's hands clutched his rib cage, felt the tremors deep inside the bones. Hummingbird breath. 

And Hiro remembered those days he'd spent at Stillson Park, that merry-go-round his father had loved to spin him on, and he'd lied there, spine pressed against the flaking surface, spiraling, whirling, twirling, a child caught in his very own tornado.

And he'd heard his father's voice over the rush in his head, manic.

_'You said faster, Hiro. You said faster! I'm giving you faster!!!'_

And then Tadashi burst open, everything shaking, crumbling off and putting itself back together. He screamed. Once. A call. 

And Hiro raked his nails across his burnished shoulder blades. He could feel it, those feathers, sprouting, growing proud, quivering. 

Getting ready to take flight.  

 

 

☓☓☓

 

 

_I am a bad man._

_Bad men do not deserve to have good things. They just take. I just take. Without permission. Without deserving._

_I do not deserve the opposite of pain._

_I am a bad man._

_I am a bad man._

_I am bad._

 

☓☓☓

 

 

There was something sinister spilling through the air, an airborne epidemic. Hiro could feel it clawing at the branches in his lungs, widening the pores of his skin, icky, muck between the strands of his hair. It was everywhere. 

The decay of all good things.  

The orchestra was playing up in its seats above the podium, midnight hymns making the champagne glasses hum. Everything was dressed up in silk and pearls, polished shoes ghosting across the floor, checkered, black and white like a chess board. You could see them, the players, those prepped figurines, weaving themselves through the rows of tables and chairs, dodging low dangling chandeliers in a quick-step. 

A dance of living, breathing chess pieces. Roaming, observing, calculating, every one of their motions so precise.

_Who were the Pawns, the Rooks? Where were the Bishops? Were all Knights present or just the one? Who was going to overthrow the King? The Queen? Who was going to be the winner when the sun came up?_

Hiro rested his back against the deck of the bar, sucked in all the bullshit from a distance. It was nothing but a wicked game dressed up in crystal and steel. 

Hiro had his hand curled around a glass of Whiskey, and he was going to down at least ten more before the clock hit three. Fuck it. Fuck all of this. 

He remembered hating Galas as a child. He remembered hating the itch of his cut suit, the crunch of his toes in his shoes, his father's hands constantly tugging at his shoulders, reminding him that his spine should be proud and straight and high, high, high. And he'd hated all of it, abhorred it, the stares of those hounds burning away his gel-slicked scalp, looking in, trying to figure out how they could wrap him around their cruel intentions. And his father would just stand there, nodding, approving, _'Go charm them, Hiro. Go be my little wolf in sheep's wool. Go make me proud.'_ And - _God_ \- he'd smiled. Hiro had smiled. Just like them. Just like all of them, he'd crossed his fingers behind his back and smiled his biggest smile. Like those porcelain dolls his mother used to collect, all polished and shiny in their little glass coffins, eyes dead, mouths split wide. 

_Smile. Smile. Smile._

_You're perfect. You're powerful._

_You're at the top of the food chain._

_Smile. Smile wide with your cannibal teeth._

_Don't let anyone see your gashes._

 

 ☓

 

 

Hiro saw him at half past one, past the dead of the night, past the moon burrowed into the sky like an oculus. His boy. 

He was sitting at the table out back near the doors of the kitchen. The worker's table. The tiny space for the Pawns. He didn't look like a Pawn. He looked like a beacon ripping straight through the crowd of polished and perfect, outshining. 

Hiro's stomach was wallowing around his insides. Wet-sloshy-hot. His fourth glass of Whiskey had made the world sway, everything shining so much brighter, everything humming so much louder. And Hiro stared at his baby boy from a distance, and he was blinding bright, like moonlight and stars. 

The prettiest thing.

Hiro wanted to corrupt him, mute him, dirty him up. And he felt it in his hands, his fingers shaking. Always shaking. 

Hiro wove himself through the packs of people scattered throughout the hall, voices feral with the champagne flowing faster. All the wolves so keen to show their teeth. It was the nightcall. It was the moon. 

Hiro reached the table, made the interns shut their mouthes with nothing but a stare. They were all so small, specks of dirt beneath his feet. So unimportant. 

Except for him. 

Hiro didn't know why. And not knowing made him angry. Red-angry.

"Mr. Hamada," Hiro said. Tadashi turned in his chair, head angling up, eyes mirroring the flickers of the chandeliers. Hiro's gut rumbled when he watched a flush leak into his cheeks - his baby boy's candy apple cheeks. 

"Mr. Krei," Tadashi said, nothing but a tremble. Hiro wanted that mouth on him. Now. Right now. On his skin. In his skin. Let him make everything inside of him damp. 

"I need to speak with you. In private." Hiro wanted to touch him. He wanted to touch him so bad, make him tremble, make him scream, make him feel all those things no one else could give him. 

_My little quiver of a bird._

Tadashi's throat bobbed. A swallow. Hiro imagined he could hear it, that gulp, sticky with slick spit. And when Tadashi shifted in his seat, those red marks peeked out from under the collar of his shirt. 

The remnants of Hiro's cannibal teeth on his boy's throat. 

_He's mine. All mine. My little quiver of a bird._

Tadashi shuffled onto his feet, and he looked up, and he was trying to look so tall. And if he tried just a little harder, if his spine just grew the tiniest inch - he would be. He would be so tall. 

"Yeah. Yes. Okay," Tadashi said, cheeks burning down into a darker shade. Dangerous. Hiro wanted to snap him, crack him raw and open in the coat room or a toilet stall or the back of the fucking kitchen. 

_Break him. Break him some more._

Hiro led him through the crowd. He wanted to dip a shaking hand into the hollow of Tadashi's back, that space at the bud of his spine, scooped out and sloped. Hiro's hand fit so perfectly into him. It was this sense of being able to shape one's body into the grooves another. Every one of your edges, every one of your lines being defined by a purpose you weren't even fully aware of. You fit against someone else's skin. And maybe that mere thought made you feel a hint of completion. You fit somewhere. You fit somewhere warm and breathing. 

They'd almost reached the winged gates at the front of the Gala, glowing in drapes of star-studded strings - when the wolves sniffed them out. 

"Hiro, there you are." His father's voice, nothing but a slice of cold air on his neck, something that made you feel your blood pearling. Hiro whipped around, Tadashi following suit, both of them standing beneath the swaying chandeliers. It felt like there were frozen, like two dears stuck in the headlights getting ready for impact. 

Countdown: three, two, one. 

"Hiro, may I steal your," his lips pinched themselves together, wrinkled, sour, " _protege_ for a moment?" 

The way he said it. The way he fucking said it. Hiro shoved himself in front of Tadashi. And he tried to make himself bigger in the face of his father's steel-sharp stare, his iron rod back higher than ever monument. Like nothing could reach him. You were just a speck below the spiked edges of his heels, so small, so unimportant. 

And he was always looking down - always looking down on him, even now - even with Hiro being just as tall. 

His father's chin angled steeper, features cut, body carved out of mountain ranges and glaciers, up high, up top. 

"There are some people who'd like to meet him," he said, in way that made you feel like he was threatening you with a hand in your gut, everything inside of you clenching against those fingers, five knives polished down to a mirror finish. 

And for a moment, Hiro knew. He knew what he was doing, what he was saying, everything in that bullet-proof skull so apparent. 

_Give me that fresh meat, Hiro. The wolves are hungry._

Hiro stepped closer. His father smelled like a bite, sharp, metal aftertaste on a bloody tongue. 

"He was just leaving," Hiro said. 

"Was he?" His father smiled, his cannibal teeth beaming in the bright electricity. And then he looked past him. Because he always did. His father never wasted too much time on someone who wasn't deserving - who wasn't close enough to his empire in the sky. 

"They want to meet the bright mind that will revolutionize the healthcare system." He stepped around Hiro like he wasn't even there, like he was just swaying to the next song of the orchestra, stepping left, stepping right, dodging that blind spot that looked like his son. 

"Mr. Hamada?" His father lifted an arm, gesturing for him to follow. He was smiling. He was smiling like a man who owned the world. "Please. They want to know all about that little project of yours. Baymax, wasn't it?"

Tadashi shifted, so unsure, eyes flicking from left to right, from Hiro to the man in the sky.

"Yes," Tadashi said. And his voice was stronger than Hiro wanted it to be. "That is - Yes. Baymax."

His father's smile widened as Tadashi left Hiro's side. 

Their spines so straight. Both so proud. 

Tadashi looked over his shoulder, looked at Hiro, held on tight. But his father made him look the other way.

Hiro's little quiver of a bird. Growing. Leaving. Flying. 

_Please, come back._

 

 

☓ ☓ ☓  

 

 

There were exactly two things his father had given him in his life. 

Just two. 

Lord of the Flies by William Golding - and the Krei bloodline. 

And it was strange realizing that you could grow up to be the man you were by being defined by just two things. 

Just two. 

The bloodline - _a kingdom_ \- the book - _a guide_. 

 

 

☓ ☓ ☓  

 

 

Hiro was leaning against the window of his bedroom when the doorbell rang. 

It was a singing thing in the dead of the night. A time where the world should be asleep. But Hiro didn't sleep. Sleep made his hands slack, broken. Sleep made his walls tumble. He couldn't stand the thought of having his eyes closed and letting himself be so defenseless, so bare. So he'd just lie there, the ranges of his bed rocking him down into a state where he wouldn't even remember what it felt like to want to fight it. 

Maybe that's why they called it falling. Falling asleep. Man was always so afraid of a fall, to be so close to a drop without a bottom, but once he went tumbling - suddenly, he didn't brace for impact. 

He welcomed it with open arms. 

 

 

 ☓

 

 

It was him, his baby bird, standing in the lowlights beyond the door of Hiro's apartment. He was flickering, hair sticking to his flushed face, the bones of his cheeks jutting out polished. His mouth was open, and he was breathing so fast. Hummingbird breath. 

He was wet, skin covered in a sticky layer, moonlit. 

Hiro had been standing at the window for hours. He hadn't noticed the rain, hadn't seen it. Maybe he hadn't been looking out of the window at all. 

"How do you know where I live?" Hiro didn't know what else to say. The question made his gut bubble, red-angry.

_'You never come looking for me. I - come looking for you, baby boy. Those are the rules. Don't you ever break them. Don't you dare.'_

"The files for the Bermuda Project, I - I have them, I - " Tadashi fumbled for his satchel, the brown leather stained by the rain. He was leaking. The marble floor beneath his sneakers was wet. Drip-drop. "You weren't at work for so long, so I thought I'd bring the papers over and - "

"Thea takes care of my papers. Thea, my secretary. Not you, an _intern_."

Tadashi's head flicked up, hand slack in his satchel. He looked so breakable, like a child that had been scolded for the silliest thing. 

Hiro swallowed. His throat felt too thick. 

"Yeah - I - I know. I know. I - sorry. I'm sorry. I just - " Tadashi pulled his hand out of the leather, fingers clenching around a wad of paper in a shiny plastic cover, like his skin, bright and smooth. 

Hiro stepped out into the hallway. The floor was cold beneath his bare feet. He couldn't feel it.All he could feel were the twitches that had been jumpstarted in his fingers. Shaking. Always shaking.

Tadashi's chest quivered. Once. Twice. Like he didn't know how to breathe. Like he was so small, still learning. 

Hiro plucked the file out of his fingers, skin sliding against his knuckles for a beat. Hiro could feel the brief contact all the way in his gut, like he was touching him inside too, reaching in and testing the waters. 

"Don't come here. Ever," Hiro said. He didn't look at him. He was looking past him, over his left shoulder, across the empty hallway, eyes straining against the illuminated sculpture standing proud between the two elevators. 

Standing proud. 

Hiro straightened his spine, felt the knobs click into place, high, sky high. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. But Hiro turned, sure, feet sliding over the floor, door in reach and ready to be shut tight. 

_Shut him out. Make him leave. Make him go away. Your birdy boy._

Hiro gripped the edge of the door, and he pushed it back, back, back. 

"Wait, Mr. Krei, wait, I - Hiro -"

_Click. Clack. Locked. Shut._

Hiro pressed a hand against the bottom of his chest, felt the soft drum of a man being. Just being. 

"Hiro."

_Go away. Leave._

"Hiro, please, just - Please, open the door."

Two steps into the apartment, and Hiro heard little fists pounding against the door - _his fists -_ drumming against that block of wood and the bones in Hiro's chest.

_Let me in. Let me in. Let me in._

"Hiro, I - I'm here because I - to check. I just wanted to check up on you. I was worried. Just wanted to check. Just…"

Hiro stood in the middle of his apartment, barefoot, back loosing its pride, slouching. Grounded. His hands were shaking so much the files between his fingers ruffled. He listened to Tadashi pound against his door. He listened to him say such soft things, such kind things, things Hiro didn't deserve to hear. 

And then it stopped. And he could hear him leave, turn his back, fly away. 

_Don't go away. Don't leave._

Hiro stumbled towards the door and ripped it open, fast enough to witness the motion of Tadashi's head snapping back around, their eyes locking with the sound of a pulse. 

And those eyes. 

Those eyes, dark like the earth that had sprouted a garden in Hiro's hideaway, green and so alive in the afternoon glow. Hiro's past. Hiro's boyhood. The most naive thing.

Tadashi smiled, tired and in need of something. Anything.

 

 

☓

 

 

Aversion to pain was human instinct. Aversion to pain was human nature. 

Even bad men were human. And wasn't that the cruelest punishment of them all. 

 

 

 ☓

 

 

Maybe he was the only thing in his life that was alive. Maybe he was the only thing that breathed with real lungs, that had a chest that was powered by a real heartbeat, that had a mind ruled by real thoughts. 

He was a creature that moved in real motions. 

And so he was standing in the middle of Hiro's apartment, and he looked like the only thing he could grasp, flesh and bone, an animate being. Like the life that inhibited the greenhouse, that little glass kingdom, Hiro's center of gravity when his bones had been small, still growing, and his heart had been the loudest thing in existence. 

_Green. Soft crystal angles. Damp soil. My face beaming beneath the afternoon glow._

Tadashi Hamada was everything Hiro had forgotten existed. Tadashi Hamada was a memory of all that he had left behind. 

Tadashi Hamada, the boy who held Hiro's yesterdays. 

 

 

  ☓

 

 

Hiro laid him onto his bed, careful, like he was afraid of breaking him one more time, one last time, one times too many. He'd pulled the curtains closed. Nobody could see. Nobody could witness. The world wasn't watching. It was just this. Just them. 

 

Him and him.

 

Tadashi brushed the clothes from Hiro's body, whispered them away, warm gusts of his hummingbird breath. 

 

Hiro didn't want to hold Tadashi. Hiro wanted Tadashi to hold him. 

 

Skin against skin, smooth, quiet. Communicating heartbeats. Muscles playing lullabies. 

 

And Hiro wasn't giving him anything. He was letting Tadashi take. _Take. Take all you need. Take anything, everything before you leave._

 

Hiro let him break apart his walls, let him take down one brick at a time. He let him take a peek. He let him crawl into the spaces in-between. 

 

Roaming bodies. 

 

Tadashi was above him, the light of the hallway leaking through from behind, illuminating. A halo. 

 

Hiro watched his wings unfurl, dark wisps quivering against the atmosphere, pounding, beating in time with the things in their chests. 

 

Tadashi was looking down at him, fingers in his hair, holding on tight, the softest touch, his birdy-boy hands. 

 

_'What do you want to be when you grow up, Hiro?'_

 

Hiro reached up, reached for the clouds, let his fingers slide against the bone of Tadashi's jaw. He pulled him down, found his mouth, kissed him, kissed him like he didn't know how to, like nobody was watching. 

_'What do you want to be when you grow up, Hiro?'_

 

And he breathed him in, cradled him between his lungs. Oxygen and warmth. Never-ending inhales. Tadashi was inside. Always. Always. Always. 

 

_'Happy.'_

_Just happy. That's all I'm asking for._

 

☓☓☓

 

 

You knew it was going to happen. You were waiting, lurking, knowing. But when it finally happened - if just for a moment - it felt like you hadn't known anything at all. You were so unprepared. You were nothing. Nothing at all.

And Hiro remembered playing hide-and-seek in his old home, his little feet skidding across polished wooden decks, dodging sculptures in glass cases, rushing through thick curtains that drip-dropped over the floor in ruby puddles. And then he'd find that perfect spot, that little nook he'd be able to squeeze himself into if he just tried hard enough. And he'd hold his breath. And he'd wait. And he'd wait. And he'd wait. 

Knowing.

And his mother would slip through each room of the house, her bare feet stretched onto tip-toes, popping, pricking. And he'd hear her voice far away or close enough to touch. 

_'Oh, wherever could you be, Hiro? Wherever could my little boy be?'_

And Hiro's throat would bob with swallowed giggles, and he'd press a hand against his mouth. It would always make the breathing so hard. 

_'Is he under here? Or over there? What about here?'_

He'd know she'd find him. He'd be ready. He'd be ready. He'd be so prepared.

_'Oh, are those little feet I see? Little toes?'_

And he'd know, he'd know, he'd know she'd plop onto her hands and knees and look under the bed. He'd know she knew. He'd know she'd find him. Because she always did. Without fault. 

And he'd be ready. He'd be ready, ready, ready.

And he'd be able to see her feet slipping across the floor, muscles pulling her heels back down. And he'd hold his breath, air tight in his chest. And she'd angle her shins, kneecaps coming into view, tiny insect bites and scrapes peeking out from underneath the hem of her frilly-girl dress, fingers sliding over the floor, palms rolling down, down, down. 

And he'd see the tips of her dark curls, dangling, falling, brushing across the dust on the shiny floor.

And he'd be so ready, so prepared. She'd find him. She always did. He'd know it would happen. He'd see it. He'd feel it. 

_'Ha! Gotcha!'_

And in the face of her grin and that feeling of having been uncovered, caught, he'd scream, he'd hide his face in his hands, and he'd cry. 

Because in that little flicker of a moment, it would feel like she'd caught him by surprise. 

Like he hadn't been prepared. Even though he had. Like he hadn't known anything. Even though he had. 

_I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready._

 

 

☓☓☓

 

 

_I am not ready. I am not._

 

 

☓☓☓

 

  

"The sister company is funding it. The robot, that Baymax. It's fresh. It's new. The market's ready for, well - innovation."

His father had his back turned towards him, the back of his skull stretching over the leather chair, bright strands gel-slicked, stone-hard.

Everything about him was impenetrable. 

"I knew it. I knew he was meant to do great things, that boy. Great things," he said, every word cut by a downbeat.

The chair turned in one smooth motion like a wave, like a tide, and his father held himself like the King of the Seven Seas and every layer above and below. And he was sitting there, the glass window behind him so spotless it wasn't even there, giving way to a million mile drop with earth at the bottom. 

Nothing could touch him. Not even Hiro. 

"They're ready to meet him. I'm sending him to Japan."

Each word was a hit. Hiro tried to keep breathing through the punches. 

"Come, Hiro, sit." His father straightened his shoulders, jagged like the frame of his suit, and he flicked a hand up and gestures towards the chair in front of his desk. It looked so small in his room in the clouds. It looked like the smallest thing that had ever existed, a molecule dressed in leather. 

Hiro didn't sit down. "When?" he said instead.

"In two days," his father said. 

Hiro felt his knuckles mold into fever-red fists. They were shaking. Always shaking. Always, always, always. Hiro wasn't allowed to shake in front of the man in the sky. 

_'Never show weakness, Hiro. You are stone. You are marble. You are tall, spine high, sky high. Everything about you coiled tight. You do not tremble. You do not move. Do you understand that, boy? Do you understand?'_

"Hiro. He's a distraction. You do not need a distraction."

Hiro sucked in a slice of air, let it cut his lungs in one motion. 

"Especially if a distraction turns into," his father shifted, his eyes icicles cracking through Hiro's skull, nailing him into place, " _attachment_."

Hiro had heard those words too many times to count. It was his father's favorite thing, tearing Hiro away from everything he held onto too tight. 

He called it 'teaching'. He called it 'a way of life'. 

_'Chin up, boy. You can't be weak. Not in a dog-eat-dog world. It's every man for himself. Forever. Always. Do you understand, Hiro? Forever. Always.'_

Those were the last things his father had said to him before he'd forced the vet to put his dog down because he'd been barking too loud. Those were the last things his father had said to him before he'd sold the house, the home, the green-glass-hideaway in the backyard. Those were the last things his father had said to him before he'd pulled him out of school, out of every contact he'd ever had, before he'd turned him into a ghost, before he'd snapped that electric band to his wrist to monitor every quiver, every twitch, every movement of his son - his line of succession. 

And then they'd left. They'd moved to the city, a place that was ruled by nothing but steel and cold, a place that should be Hiro's one day. 

Steel and cold. 

"Attachment is a dangerous thing, Hiro. It makes us weak. Man cannot function when weak," he said, not even moving, not even blinking, frozen in time. 

"Man cannot function when in pain either," Hiro said. 

It made his father's shoulders twitch. Once. Just once. Barely even there. 

"What do you know about pain?"

"Enough." Hiro turned his back, feet heavy as he steered them towards the door. He was not going to look back. His father did not deserve for him to look back. 

"Remember what I told you. Wolves, Hiro. Wolves do not mingle with sheep." 

Hiro reached the door, fingers ripping it open, a hit of cold air fanning across his face. 

 _But he's not a sheep. Tadashi Hamda is not a sheep._  

 

 

☓☓☓

 

 

_I am not ready. I am not._

 

☓☓☓

 

 

"He's going to do so many good things, Hiro. Baymax. I can't - Crap, I can't believe they're actually funding it. They're funding it."

Tadashi was balancing his weight on the ledge of the roof. He was standing right at the edge, the city down below, a few inches away from the tips of his toes. The wind was playing with his hair, with his clothes, with his skin. He looked like he was part of it, this atmospheric pressure, like his body could communicate with these patterns of featherweight motions, aerial, winged. 

Tadashi looked like he was so ready to fly. 

He'd brought Hiro up here. He'd told him he snuck up to the roofs of the Krei Tech building every night. He'd told him he liked looking up. And Hiro didn't know if he meant looking at the sky or just up. Up, up and away. 

Birdy boy. 

"They're giving me, like, a day to make a decision. You know, if I'll sign the contract. I'd stay there then. Work there. Out there. For a year or two. I mean, that's - " He inhaled, his chest puffing up like that of a sparrow in winter. "I mean, that's a really long time."

Hiro dug his hands further into the pockets of his pants. They were shaking, always shaking against the itchy material. 

Always, always shaking. 

"Hiro?" 

Hiro looked up at him. Tadashi's back was facing the moon, this bright hole in the sky, his halo. And he was looking down at him, and it was so dark Hiro couldn't see his face.

He didn't want to see his face. 

"Do you think I should go? Should I go?"

"That's not something you should be asking me."

"But - "

"Do you want to go?"

"Yes."

"Then why are you asking?"

"Why aren't you?"

"What?"

Hiro watched his wings whip against the wind. He could feel the beat in the air.  

"Ask me."

"Ask you what?"

"Ask me to stay."

Breathing. Silence. 

"Tell me to stay, Hiro."

Silence. Breathing.

"Would you if I did, Tadashi?"

"Say it. Just say it."

Breathing. 

Silence. 

"Tell me to stay."

_I can't._

_I can't keep you shackled to the ground._  

 

 

 ☓ ☓ ☓

 

 

Aversion to pain was human instinct. Aversion to pain was human nature. 

And so Hiro found himself in the parking lot of the San Fransokyo airport, seatbelt strapping him to the leather, the doors of his car locked shut, engine still running. 

Instinct and human nature. He was just responding to his chest. It was legitimate. He was being legitimate. 

But he couldn't step out of the car. He couldn't get out and run towards the boarding gates, find him, catch him, bring him right back, bring him back down. Onto the ground. 

He shouldn't. He couldn't.

The hum of the engine made his bones quake. He held his breath. He counted the seconds. He counted the minutes. He counted that one full hour. 

_5:45 AM - Departure Time - San Fransokyo to Yokohama_

He didn't know which plane he was sitting in. He didn't know if he was sitting in the plane he heard soaring at 5:45 AM. Maybe it had been delayed. Maybe he was sitting in the plane that took off at 5:56 AM or 6:02 AM or the one after that, or the one after that. 

Hiro didn't know. Even at 8:32 AM, Hiro didn't know. He just stayed seated in his car, not knowing. 

Tadashi was up in the sky. Tadashi was flying. Tadashi was airborne. Finally.

Hiro's little quiver of a bird was leaving him behind. 

Because they all did. 

 

 

☓☓☓

 

 

Hiro spent his days with his head angled towards the sky. He flexed his fingertips, tried to reach, tried to touch, hold on. 

But his spine wasn't high enough. 

 

 

 ☓ ☓ ☓

 

 

Hiro called him twice a day. Tadashi had a new phone number. Hiro knew, but he called his old phone number anyways, listened to the _beep, beep, beep_ \- until the robotic voice of the phone operator told him that this number no longer existed. 

But for those few blips in time, for those few _beep, beep, beeps,_ there was that impossible chance of him impossibly picking up. 

Hiro wouldn't know what to say if he did. 

_Hello? Hi? How are you?_

"Come back. No, don't. Don't come back," Hiro pressed into the cool glass of his bedroom window, watched his breath fog up the surface in puffs. "Come back down. No, don't. Never mind. Never mind."

 

 

☓☓☓

 

 

Hiro was living with a ghost in his chest. 

 

 

☓☓☓

 

 

Thea dug up Tadashi's new number. She wrote it down on a yellow sticky note. She'd scribbled his new E-Mail below. Even his new address. 

New, new, new. Tadashi's new life. 

Hiro stuck the sticky note to his window, a yellow beacon bursting through the San Fransokyo skyline, jagged teeth, steel-cold puzzle pieces slotting into their spaces in the sky.

Waiting. Watching. 

After a month, Hiro threw it into the trash can. 

 

 

☓☓☓

 

 

Hiro missed his skin at night. 

He clutched at himself, tried to create that pressure that nobody else could. Not even his own hands. 

And he fucked himself raw, breathed into his sheets, throat horse, tongue spilling over, everything slick and hot and not enough. Never enough. 

Hiro missed his eyes in the morning. 

 

 

☓☓☓

 

 

Tadashi didn't call. Tadashi didn't write. Tadashi didn't do anything to reach down, to reach Hiro on the ground, below. But why would you look back down if you were so far up all you could see were the clouds and the sun - for miles and miles and miles. 

Tadashi didn't owe him anything. 

Hiro was a gash in his life, an ugly indent, a leftover of a blackout. 

Hiro had done bad things. Because that was what bad men did. 

Bad men did bad things to good people. 

 

 

☓☓☓

 

 

"Tadashi. I'm sorry."

 

 

☓ ☓ ☓ 

 

 

Sometimes Hiro had dreams about him. Sometimes nightmares. Sometimes daydreams. Sometimes flashes of memories. Sometimes he thought about things that had happened - and things that hadn't. 

And he could still feel it, that day, a reminder constantly coming back, saying, 'Hello. Remember me?'

And Hiro said, 'Yes, yes, I do. Every second.'

He remembered his father leading him down the rows of interns, all bright and eager - fresh meat so willing to be ripped open, torn apart, eaten by an elite breed of a nation that lived in the sky. And he remembered spotting him at the back, this boy, trying so hard with his bird-boned body. Just trying so fucking hard to be everything at once. Hiro could see it in his spine, the way he was trying to force it up, up, up. 

And then Hiro had seen his eyes. And he'd hated him. Hiro had hated him more than anything in the world.

Those two eyes: damp soil in the afternoon glow. 

Those two hands: the touch of green beneath little fingertips, vines curling down bright tinted flowerpots.

That face: sun beams spilling through glass.

That boy: a childhood hideaway almost forgotten. 

And Hiro remembered thinking, _'Put him on a leash. Chain him. Break him. Break him, let him put himself back together, then break him again. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. I fucking hate him.'_

What Hiro hadn't known at the time, was that he was going to break that boy until he was unbreakable. 

Hiro had made him grow bigger, prouder. Hiro had made him invincible. 

Hiro had pushed him off the edge, and he'd gone soaring. 

 

 

 

☓ ☓ ☓ 

 

 

Hiro found him. 

He found him everywhere. He found him in the bodies that he twisted into his sheets for 450 per hour. He found him in the paintings etched into the dome of every chapel. He found him at the bottom of every bottle. He found him in the shadows of strangers rushing through the electric night. He found him in his hands, in his rib cage, in his head when it hurt too much to fall asleep. He found him in the air. He found him in the sky. 

Day and night. 

Hiro found him.

 

 

☓ ☓ ☓  

 

_I found the opposite of pain._

_But let it go._

_I let him go._

 

 

 ☓ 4 years later ☓

 

 

Hiro hadn't known if today would've ever come. It felt like a dream - a nightmare, even, something he didn't want to be real. But this was real. And reality was the only thing that could crush everything in mere seconds - like an avalanche, like a detonation, like a roof caving in on the organ in your chest.  

Four years wasn't a long time. Four years was a beat of your eyelids. 

Eyes open. Eyes closed. 1460 days gone.

And there he was, bigger than he was on television, more real than he was on the pages of the newspapers, so much more everlasting than he was in the images stowed away in Hiro's head. 

He was right there, close enough to touch, and Hiro remembered all those times he'd wished the flex of his fingertips would've been enough to reach him - and now that it was, he couldn't make himself move.  

Hiro just stared at him, and he wondered if this was what it felt like to wake up from a coma or to be hit by the memories you had locked away since you were five. 

"Mr. Krei," he said, voice sure, solid. It was deeper now. Hiro didn't know how a boy could sound like a man in only four years. And he didn't just sound like it, he looked like it. Like someone grown. Everything drawn out, opened, unfurled, spine high, angles cut clean. Strong. Dynamic. 

Tadashi Hamada, no longer his birdy boy - no longer _his_. 

But he hadn't been Hiro's in a very, very long time. Maybe he'd never been his at all. 

Hiro stood up and stepped around his desk, and it felt like he was leaving the safety of a flood wall. 

The evening sun poured through the glass walls, everything drenched in the warmest color. And this man was basking in it, skin catching the light, igniting. He was the only thing that was alive, the only thing that was real. 

"Mr. Hamada." It sounded like his voice had come from somewhere far away. He swallowed. His ears popped. "It's been so long."

Tadashi shifted, and Hiro watched his suit strain against the movement, his muscles pressed tight against the material. He looked like the man in the moon, like the head of the universe. 

"Too long," Tadashi said. He smiled. Hiro's chest crunched. He tried to breathe, but he didn't want to ruin this sound of absolute nothing, just static, silence heated up in the evening sun. 

"The WHO is holding a press conference about a block away. I thought I'd - " Tadashi inhaled. He flicked his eyes across the floor like he was looking for something, anything. "I thought I'd use the opportunity to come say hello."

He looked back up. He looked at Hiro. Hiro didn't want him to look away. It felt like he'd disappear if he did. He'd leave all over again. It was a strange fear, the kind he hadn't felt in years, the kind he hated, even now. He wouldn't wish this feeling on anyone. 

"I knew it," Tadashi said, hands slipping through his hair. "I should've - I should've called before coming. I didn't really think ahead. I didn't - " He stopped. He didn't move. He looked so far away. "You look good."

"So do you," Hiro said, and he couldn't help but shrug a little. "You've made it, I see."

Tadashi laughed. It was this low hum, too strained, something you trained your vocal chords to do when you needed to laugh but you didn't want to. 

"I'd hardly call it that."

"You said he'd do good things, remember? And he did. You did. Respectfully, you should be proud to call it that." 

"Yes, well - " Tadashi said it like he was going to say more. But he didn't. He dug his hands into the pockets of his pants. Hiro tried to keep his hands out in the open. They hadn't shook this much for so long. Too long. Maybe he'd even missed it, this feeling of not being able to control something so trivial.

"Congratulations. I mean, on the engagement," Tadashi said, one hand pulled out of his pocket, gesturing towards Hiro. 

The words stung. The pain reminded him of that one time he'd swallowed a wasp that had found its way into his soda pop when he was ten. And it had stung the inside of his throat, everything burning, heating up, puffing. He hadn't been able to breathe. He hadn't been able to move, the allergic reaction building up like a fire spreading. He'd just sat in the back of the ambulance, choking, wishing for it to be over. Or for him to be over. 

"I heard from Thea."

"You talked to Thea?"

"Oh no, we - uh - stumbled into each other this morning. Small world. Even a place as big as San Fransokyo."

"Yes." Hiro tried to swallow. It felt like the sting of that wasp was still there, pulsating, hurting. 

"So," Tadashi looked down, "when's the big day?", then back up. 

"July 5th."

The day the agreement would be put down on paper. Because it had never been anything else, nothing more, nothing less. His father had found him a pretty girl, the way he'd promised he would when Hiro was a child. A girl with shiny hair and a polished face and a four-syllabled surname held high by a powerful bloodline.

An agreement. An arrangement. A contract. 

Hiro looked away every time she twirled around fundraisers or functions, getting drunk on champagne and attention, sitting on the laps of men twice her age, twice her wealth, twice her rank on the food chain. And she looked away every time Hiro snuck out to find someone who would hold him through the night. 

She had his spine. He had her spine. Sky high. She had his teeth. He had her teeth. Cannibals.

It was nothing but an oath between the same breed. 

"Does she make you happy?" 

Hiro didn't know when Tadashi had come so close. Too close. Hiro could see the worlds in his eyes, the memories they held, all the reminders. 

It hurt so much just to look. 

_'What do you want to be when you grow up, Hiro?'_

"It's not about happiness," Hiro said. 

Tadashi's eyelids twitched. His chest wasn't moving. It looked like he was holding his breath. "Then what is it about?"

Hiro swallowed when he dared to take a step towards him, the remainder of his birdy boy. He was no longer small. He was no longer a quiver. 

Tadashi was no longer a bird. He was a man in the sky.

"You should've asked me to stay," Tadashi said. And his words ripped Hiro right back to that time, to that night, the wind in his hair, his wings invincible, the moon a halo. His halo. 

"If I had," Hiro forced his hands into fists, "you would've never grown to be who you are now."

Tadashi smiled. Smiles weren't supposed to be such bitter things. 

"I haven't seen you in four years. You never called," Tadashi said. "Why didn't you just - Why didn't you just call?" 

_Because I wanted you to grow._

And it sounded so pathetic. Because the truth was pathetic. The truth was small. And something small never made any sense. 

"Why didn't you?" Hiro asked. 

_Because you wanted to grow._

Tadashi shook his head, and he looked like he was trying to shake the thoughts into place. Or maybe he was trying to shake them away.

"I loved you," Tadashi said. 

For a moment, Hiro pretended that he could hear the air moving inside of his own lungs, wisps of motions, brushes like fingertips across skin. 

"You didn't know what love was," Hiro said.

"Did you?"

Hiro shook his head. "No." 

"Then how would you know?"

"Because that - " Hiro caught himself, tried to soften the words that had shot out of his mouth like bullets. "Because that couldn't have been - _love_. What kind of love was that?"

_What kind of love is this now?_

"The crooked kind." Tadashi's words were barely a whisper, just breath. Warm breath. "What if I asked you now?" Tadashi said, and he was staring at him, so insistent, almost angry. "Because I'd be important enough now, right? Am I worth your while now? Am I big enough for you? To be able to ask you? To ask without you turning your back?"

Hiro shook his head. 

_It was never about that. It was never._

"Will you ask me to stay?" Tadashi made it sound like a demand. He made it sound like that question his mother had asked him on his ninth birthday. 

_'What do you want to be when you grow up, Hiro?'_

"It's too late for that," Hiro said, trying to hold his stare. And he imagined that Tadashi was the boy he'd once been, dainty, breakable, a little quiver of a bird. 

"Ask me, Hiro."

"What sense would that make. Now? Here? In all of this?"

"Just ask," Tadashi said, and - _God_ \- that boy was back, naive and wide-eyed, thinking the world was the easiest place. "Ask me to stay."

Hiro didn't say a word. Like back then. Like four years ago. And there was so much he wanted to say. There was so much he wanted to know. But he wouldn't let himself. Because he never did. 

He'd learned how to live with pain. 

The thing on Tadashi's face retreated, innocence crawling back into the skin, burying itself back into the bone. He was tall again, proud, growing strong. The distance between them was back to being a canyon, a million miles capped by bullet-proof glass. 

Tadashi pulled at the hem of his suit, the sharp tug flattening out the crevice that had formed at the bottom. 

"Well," he said with a steady voice. "It was wonderful seeing you again, Mr. Krei."

The prettiest white lie. 

Hiro held his breath. Because that was what you did in the real world. You held your breath and took in the punches. You took, took, took. And you stood proud. You stood like a monument, like a mountain, like something that could never be overthrown. Because that was how you had to be in this life, in this reality, in this dog-eat-dog world. You could not afford to be weak.  

But pain was even more unbearable than the looming presence of weakness. Pride and pain. It was always about pride and pain. 

Tadashi turned. Hiro's heartbeat disappeared. 

He listened to the click-clack of his heels hitting the polished floor. He listened to him open the door, the creak of it so familiar, reminding him of those nights where the roles had been reversed - where Tadashi had been left bare on the desk and Hiro, so weak, had rushed out, chest loud, hands shaking, slamming the door shut and pressing his back against the wood, thinking, _I can't look at him. I can't. I can't let him stay. I can't. I can't. Make him go away. Make him go away._

The door shut. 

All Hiro could hear was that one question, that plague of a question. 

_'What do you want to be when you grow up, Hiro?'_

Hiro ran towards the door, opened it with a whip, every bone in his body quaking, and he knew the answer. He'd known the answer his whole entire life. And what had he done to turn it into reality? What had he done to fight for it? He knew how things worked in the world that he existed in. He knew that whatever he was doing was irrational. It was instinct. It was this tug in his chest, right behind the notch between the wings of his rib cage. But maybe for a moment, if just for a moment, he knew exactly what he was doing. Maybe for a moment he knew that, yes, this was weakness - and weakness was honesty.

This was Hiro with his shaking hands and his grounded spine. 

"Stay." It felt like the word had been nothing but an echo in his skull. 

_Stay. Please, stay. Stay. Stay. Stay._

Tadashi turned, and Hiro reached out, flexed his fingers until it hurt, touched his wings, touched his airborne body. 

And he held on as tight he could.

 

 

 

☓  FIN  ☓

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was pretty dark...and serious...I don't know. They share a very confusing relationship that had/has a lot of toxic connotations. Maybe they'll make it in the future. Maybe they won't. Everything in this is open to interpretation. I went overboard on the symbolism...and the surrealism...And if you have any questions regarding that, ask awaaaay *super awkward finger guns* 
> 
> ALSO, I'M SO SORRY, HAMABROS! You are my sweet, sweet coco-puff children, but sometimes these things happen. My angsty drama mind has scarred you. For that, I am truly sorry. Love you though <3 You ma boos. 
> 
> Aaaaanywaaaays! I'm off to writing cutie-pie fluff for the last chapter of IAYC! Hazaaa *throws marshmallows* Have a wonderful day my spectabulous fandom companions!
> 
>  


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